Conscious reframing is one of the most accessible self-development skills because it aligns with how your brain works internally. Your brain already performs this task for you. And just as you can consciously control your breathing, you can also learn to consciously control your reference frames.

A reference frame is a context upon which other thinking and behaviors are layered. It’s essentially an assignment of meaning.

We don’t think in terms of how reality works. We think in terms of how we’re modeling reality internally. Our brains are constantly building and refining models (or frames).

For example, during a conversation you might use the frame that you’re on a romantic date, or maybe it’s a job interview, or perhaps it’s a coaching session. The frame you use will determine the decisions you make and the thoughts that bubble up from your mind. If you frame a conversation as a date, your mind will try to generate thoughts consistent with that frame. If you frame that same conversation as an interview, your mind will generate different thoughts.

Change the reference frames you use, and you can significantly change the flow of actions and the results you get.

Many people don’t even realize that they can consciously choose to use different frames. They get latched onto a frame and mistake it for the only reality they can access, even though there are countless other framing options that remain accessible. Another name for this is limiting beliefs. What many people don’t see is that every reference frame is inherently limiting. Every belief limits you. But there is freedom to be found in flexing the variety of frames you can access.

Motivating Frames

It’s been powerful to challenge the default reference frames I learned when I was younger and to gradually upgrade them (sometimes just from desperation).

For instance, I don’t normally use reference frames like jobs or salaries or income to think about work. I use reference frames like opportunities, invitations, creative explorations, fun, and mutual appreciation. My old reference frames (that sucked) were so damned mental and fenced in. My preferred reference frames are much more emotionally stimulating, and they align way better with what actually motivates me.

When I was broke, I used reference frames that made money feel scarce, limited, and difficult to earn in sufficient quantities. I kept focusing on trying to increase my income. I thought a lot about the reference frames of rent and bills and how the heck I was going to cover them. I often framed my financial life as a flow of income and expenses.

These were demotivating and stressful frames to use, so no wonder they didn’t invite my best creativity to solve my financial problems. Does that framing work any better for you?

One of the biggest upgrades was to shift to using frames that increased motivation and creative flow – especially frames of fun, creativity, service, and sharing. These frames still work nicely today. They take care of the bills without having to focus on the bills.

One of the most crucial shifts was to dump the reference frame of feeling like I had to prove myself – that one was such a bottomless pit. The reference frame of having nothing to prove was a lot more effective. Then I could pick projects based on exploration, growth, learning, discovery, connection, fun, opportunities, etc. It’s more motivating to follow my curiosity instead of seeking validation.

When I was in my 20s, I also used very short-term reference frames for time, mostly thinking about how to make it through the next few weeks or the next month. I ran so much of my life based on cycles of bills and rent. These days I prefer to think in terms of multi-year investments and long-term threads of action. My current reference frames are more patient and abundant with respect to time. In the past I wanted everything faster and sooner. Now I enjoy a more relaxed pacing most of the time, but I actually get more done and finished this way. Even when I go for a more intense experience, it’s very manageable because I don’t invest to the point of getting burnt out or frazzled.

Socially I also dropped some frames that kept me stuck, like loyalty to family and long-term friends, regardless of glaring incompatibilities. When I stopped tolerating so many mismatches and began moving towards people that I genuinely liked and appreciated, that made such a wonderful difference. Another improvement was to be loyal to truth ahead of any loyalty to individuals. There’s a huge opportunity cost that comes with investing in mismatches and partial matches, and we pay a big motivational price when we let ourselves become socially stuck.

I’d say the single most powerful framing upgrade was to pay attention to my relationship with life itself (or with reality). I began noticing which decisions hurt that relationship by making it more tense and stressful… or more boring and disengaged. I started noticing which decisions made that relationship better and added some nice sparkle and beauty to that relationship, leaving me feeling appreciative and centered. Then I kept striving to make decisions to honor this relationship instead of trashing it. That was hugely beneficial, leading to so many positive ripples. I grew happier and more satisfied with life over time. I felt way more supported too.

Testing New Frames

What reference frames have you been using that no longer be serve you? Any thoughts on which reference frames it may be time to dump?

What other reference frames seem tempting? You could at least test them.

One meta-level frame that I found especially helpful is that I can test frames without having to believe them. A frame isn’t a truth. It’s just a perspective, so no belief is necessary. This makes it easier to experiment since you don’t have to convince yourself of anything. You can just dive in and see what the results are if you use different frames. Let the results convince you to keep using a frame (or not).

I keep using certain reference frames since I like the results. I dumped the frames which created dismal results. I also get to witness other people’s long-term use of different frames and the results they get from those frames.

Due to how the brain works, it’s tough to get better results with your actions if you don’t also change your default reference frames. That’s because decisions and actions flow from these frames – and therefore so do results.

I got the most stuck when I tried to upgrade my decisions and actions while clinging to my old reference frames. When I had real breakthroughs, they generally began with a shift in reference frames, and that caused meaningful shifts in my thoughts, actions, and behaviors.

One especially powerful shift happened when I challenged the old frame that I had to gain some level of financial abundance before I could do much to serve or help people. That frame got me nowhere, so I opted to test what would happen if I started volunteering and just trying to be of service for free, even though I wasn’t doing well financially at the time. That got me into writing articles and doing a little speaking, which led to a stream of positive ripples. It helped me to align my intentions with mutual appreciation, not at some future point but in the present reality.

Curiosity Is Enough

I seriously doubted that a service-based frame would work when I was broke. I had no belief that it would improve my life. I just had curiosity. That was enough.

You may have been taught from other self-development sources that belief is what matters. Well, they’re wrong. You don’t need belief. Curiosity is sufficient.

Holding a strong belief about anything is always going to be a mixed bag. A belief that can help you excel in one experience may savagely hurt you in a similar endeavor.

Frames are useful tools for solving problems. Some tools are better in some situations than others. Just as you don’t want to be dogmatic about your tools, it’s wise to remain flexible with your frames too. You’ll always have your tried-and-true favorites, but keep in mind that you can always put them down and try different frames when the situation warrants.

Be curious by asking yourself which frames might shed light on a current problem or challenge, thereby making it easier to solve. A transactional frame kept me financially stuck. A service-based frame was a super helpful change. A fun-based frame was another. Instead of fussing over rent and bills, I finally made progress by focusing on how to serve people in a motivating and enjoyable way. Those frames have been working well for more than two decades now, but I remain willing to test other frames too.

Some Favorite Frames

Some other favorite frames include:

• Thoughts and behaviors are essentially software, so they can be changed.
• My brain will naturally improve its framing more easily if I help it grasp the relationships between frames and results, such as by dialoging with it more often about such connections. When I get stuck, I delve into how my mind is modeling a situation, and I invite my mind to consider alternative models.
• There’s no need to take what my brain does personally. It has many different regions doing different kinds of computations and assessments, and it’s trained by experience, so it’s going to make plenty of mistakes, which is to be expected. Mistakes are learning experiences.
• Fussing over self-esteem issues is a waste of life. It’s like chastising a device for not being better. It makes way more sense to test and work with the capabilities of one’s mind and seek to play to its strengths. Self-esteem is irrelevant. Just use whatever interface you’ve got.
• Notice what works, and do more of it. Notice what doesn’t work, and do less of it.
• Every passing year adds more lifetime memories. Will I appreciate the memories that I’m gaining this year – for the rest of my life?

If your actions and results aren’t flowing as well as you think they could, don’t just push yourself to try to take more action. That’s like smashing a pipe with a hammer – only harder. Maybe try a wrench instead.

Reframing is built into your physical brain. Your neural circuits are fabulous at performing reframing operations, and you automatically do this many times each day. Be aware that the default behavior of your mind doesn’t always serve you optimally. Sometimes it’s wise to consciously take control of this mental ability, so you can elevate your results beyond the default settings.

This week a couple of people asked me about frames and reframing and how I got into using this particular approach to personal development, so I thought I’d share a quick piece about this. Our courses in particular includes lots and lots of different frames for solving practical problems in many areas of life.

What Is a Frame?

A frame is a way of representing a problem or situation. With respect to self-development, a frame typically assigns meaning to events.

I think you’ll ready understand this with a simple example.

Suppose someone says: My wife cheated on me.

The word “cheated” is a way of representing events. Cheating implies that the wife broke a rule or did something inherently wrong. This framing casts her actions as problematic. Apparently she did something she wasn’t supposed to do. She crossed a line.

If you use that frame, it’s surely going to influence how you approach the situation and the people involved.

But is that the only frame that could be used for the same events? No, of course not.

What was the apparent event? The wife supposedly had sex with someone else. By itself that event doesn’t mean anything. But of course humans love to assign meaning, partly because the assignment of meaning motivates us to make decisions, take actions, and make sense of the world.

So what other frames could we use here?

Here are some other possible frames for the same events:

• My wife enjoyed herself with a new side partner.
• My wife craved some extra variety and had a lovely fling.
• My wife is polyamorous.
• I have a really horny wife.
• My wife is good at making people happy.
• I’m in an open marriage.
• My wife hates me and is doing this to get back at me.
• I haven’t been as attentive to my wife as I should have, so no wonder she strayed.
• My wife is a sinner and is going to hell.
• My wife has ruined our family.
• Many people will assume that she strayed because of me.
• My wife must have a mental disorder.
• My wife has unmet needs.
• Apparently I’m not enough for her.
• We never should have moved to this city because it obviously corrupted my wife.
• My wife has been taken advantage of by some marriage-ruining creep.
• Human beings are such sluts.
• All of my relationships end in ruin; it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

Some frames assume that the marriage is broken or threatened while other frames don’t. Some frames define an event as a problem while other frames might even define that same event as normal or even as an opportunity. Some frames assign blame to individuals while other frames don’t blame anyone.

This is similar to looking at events optimistically or pessimistically except that you have many more options available to you.

Where Did I Learn Framing?

I would say that I learned this concept from computer programming and also from mathematics. I started learning to code when I was 10 years old, and I learned that there are multiple ways to transform an idea into computer code.

Any problem can be defined in different ways. Some definitions make a problem easier or more efficient to solve. Other definitions make a problem more difficult to solve.

When I was writing computer games in the 1990s to run on 386, 486, and Pentium computers, efficient code was important. Otherwise the game would run too slowly to be playable. Why write 100 lines of code if you could use a 10-line solution instead? The difference often came down to how I approached the problem to begin with.

It wasn’t enough to just solve a problem. I often had to find more efficient solutions than the standard approaches if I wanted to do something creative. Sometimes the best way to devise a more efficient solution was to step back and define the problem in a different way.

Suppose a game needs to do a lot of trigonometric calculations for objects that spin or rotate. If you want those calculations to be done faster, you could try to optimize your code to be more efficient. But you could also look at the problem from a different angle, no pun intended. You could instead pre-calculate as much as possible and save it in a lookup table, which is generally much faster than doing calculations while the game is running. The sine of 40º is always going to be the same, so there’s no need to compute it more than once, and the same goes for every other angle you may need to compute. Instead of having your game doing sine and cosine calculations during gameplay, you could just precompute and save all the sine and cosine figures for every 1º or 0.1º (whatever resolution you desired) and then just load the precomputed answers when you need them.

On a similar note, I remember learning a technique called compiled sprites. Instead of saving animations as graphics and using standard functions to display them on the screen, for a couple of games I did some extra preprocessing of the graphics to essentially turn them into code. So if I needed to draw a dragon on the screen, I bypassed drawing the dragon with a general purpose drawing algorithm (i.e. a block transfer or “blitting” function), and I had the computer pre-generate custom code specifically to draw the dragon in a more efficient way. So I basically reframed the dragon as code instead of as graphics.

I suppose a less geeky analogy would be if instead of filling your fridge with food from the grocery store, which you must assemble into meals, you had someone come over and do a week’s cooking for you, and then they stored all the complete meals in your fridge for you to enjoy later. Some years ago I hired a local chef to do that for a few months, and it was indeed more efficient to have a fridge full of meals instead of a fridge full of ingredients to make meals.

In mathematics I also learned that if I wanted to solve a problem, there were usually many ways to do it. Sometimes a problem that would take 20 steps to solve with the textbook approach could be solved in 5 steps if I just looked at it from a different angle to begin with.

So I got into reframing for efficiency reasons. The purpose of reframing was to find a smarter or quicker way to solve a given problem. It’s not about working harder. It’s about using less energy and effort to get a similar or better result.

Reframing for Motivation

There’s also the fun and engagement factor to consider. Some approaches to problem solving are boring while other approaches can be more lively and stimulating.

When I was younger, I often got stuck partway through big creative projects. I was good at starting big projects, but I wouldn’t always be able to maintain enough momentum to finish them, especially when I ran into setbacks along the way. I suffered from a lot of partially finished projects. Of course when you don’t finish a creative project like a computer game, it provides no value for anyone else, and you get paid nothing. At least that’s how it worked while I was an indie developer. I invested years in projects that were never completed. They were learning experiences at least, but it would have been nicer if I could have moved more of them across the finish line.

Reframing helped me remedy that situation, so now I’m way better at fully finishing big projects. They may sometimes take longer than I expect, but I have gotten good at finishing them. Since 2018 I launched and published 4 major courses which collectively include more than 200 lessons as well as tons of bonus content. Soon we’ll be launching our 5th course, called Guild, which is about social alignment, and I’m super confident that will be completed too. Reaching this point also gives me more flexibility to experiment since even when I’m doing something a bit unusual, I know how to stay motivated till it’s complete, and I have reframing to thank for that.

Instead of framing course development as a solo creative endeavor, I frame each new course as a social experience. Instead of going into my cave and working on my biggest creative projects alone for months on end, my creative projects are more like spirited parties that I invite people to attend. So first I invite the people, and then I engage with them and do my best to serve them creatively, lesson by lesson, till the course is complete. This approach is very effective and satisfying, and it’s a win for all involved.

This people-first framing works really well for me, as opposed to the content-first framing I tried using in the past. I realized I also use this framing for blogging, which is why I’m still actively blogging after more than 17 years on this path, and I still feel motivated to do it. Sometimes I take weeks off from blogging, often because I’m being more active in Conscious Growth Club or maybe working on personal projects, but I still enjoy writing and intend to keep going with it. I don’t think of blogging so much as writing content but rather as communicating with real people. The content framing often feels a bit cold and even creepy to me… so blah and lifeless. I find it more motivating to know that I’m always writing for real human beings, and the motivate to write arises from the flow of energy among us.

For many days in a row now, I’ve been reading feedback from people about their intentions and desires for the new Guild course. I emailed my list 8 days ago and shared a bit about the course, inviting people to tell me more about their social challenges. As I read and take notes and reflect upon what people are sharing, my motivation to do the course is increasing day by day, and so is the flow of creative ideas for what we could include. I’m also thinking of doing something a bit more creative format-wise for this course.

I’m not sure what the exact launch date will be, but I always get a strong signal when it’s time to launch. And I often find that this synchs up pretty well with when people are feeling ready to begin. So I like using the framing of allowing the universe… or my intuition… or the collective social energy of all involved to help move the project forward at just the right pacing. Admittedly I still sometimes struggle with being patient when I feel that progress is a bit slower than I’d like, but it never actually helps to force it. As long as the social energy has been invited in, I know that I need to trust the way this energy likes to engage and let it work its magic, and an avalanche of creative flow will soon follow. I can always tell that we’re getting closer to launching when the feeling of motivation starts amping up.

Applying Framing to Personal Development

Whenever I get stuck with a particularly challenging problem, I like to step back and consider how I’m framing it. What is the problem I’m trying to solve? What is the goal I’m trying to achieve?

I love to write out my intentions and reflect upon them. That helps me see their potential limitations. Then I consider other ways of looking at the same situation. What other angles could I use? What other kinds of intentions could I set?

Being flexible with my framing allows me to solve many problems more enjoyably and more efficiently.

I especially pay attention to how a particular framing affects me emotionally. Many common frames seem very boring, and if I use them I’m not going to feel very motivated. Trying to make more money is one example – by itself that framing is an all-around dud.

I prefer to think of money as the result of doing something fun, engaging, creative, and socially beneficial. That may be why I haven’t had a job or a boss in 30 years. I like to work on interesting creative projects where money is a predictable side effect. And since my creative projects are framed as social experiences, instead of asking how I can make more money, I will ask a different kind of question, such as: What kind of growth experience would people appreciate next?

So I don’t fuss over jobs or money. I think of my work life as a stream of interesting shared experiences. This is probably closer to how people think when they’re traveling or on vacation. If your work isn’t at least as motivating and rewarding as your vacations, perhaps you ought to reframe your entire approach to work.

Don’t be stubborn and clingy with your frames. If a frame isn’t working beautifully for you, drop it and try a different frames. There are so many other frames to explore that it makes zero sense to remain clingy with a frame that isn’t even giving you the results you want.

I often say to people: Don’t blame yourself. Blame the frame. There’s no point in beating yourself up for getting poor results if you’ve been using the wrong tool for the job. Just pause and acknowledge that you’ve been using the wrong tool all along. Then reach for a different tool. And keep trying different tools (or frames) till you find something that truly works.

Frames Versus Beliefs

The idea of beliefs and getting your beliefs right is very popular in personal development circles. Personally I think this is really lame and gets a lot of people stuck. Sometimes I wish I could purge this field of its clinginess with beliefs. We don’t actually know how this reality works, so any belief is just a guess anyway. Historically speaking, our guesses are usually wrong or at best inaccurate.

A belief is basically a frame that you weave into your identity. Is that a good idea? Well… imagine taking a hammer and gluing it to your palm. You’ll surely get really good at hammering if you do that, but it’s going to get in your way and limit your performance sooner or later. Heck… maybe that’s why your wife cheated on you. 😉

You can use beliefs, but do so very sparingly. I’m willing to weave veganism into my identity and make that a permanent part of my character because I’ve been vegan for more than 25 years, and there are no appealing alternatives, nor do I expect there ever will be. I’m happy to solidify that framing in terms of my behaviors. Even so, I still have access to the frames that I used before I was vegan, and while I don’t use them behaviorally anymore, I can still use them to understand other people’s behaviors.

Most of the time, however, it’s best to stay nimble and flexible with your framing. I don’t subscribe to any religions or philosophical systems because they’re all limiting. I prefer to keep my mindset adaptable because that gives me many ways to solve problems and keep making interesting improvements. Just as I learned to write computer code in multiple programming languages, I like being able to think with different mindsets. There isn’t one mindset to rule them all. There are some really powerful and versatile tools, but I don’t need any of them glued to my palm.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I seem to be getting happier as I age. I find life more satisfying and fulfilling. I enjoy my work and my relationships with other people more. I feel more centered. And these feelings don’t seem to come from taking pride in accomplishments so much. They seem to arise more from building up my reframing skills, problem-solving skills, and social skills.

Don’t try to be a one-frame wonder. This life is full of mystery, and none of us really know how it works behind the scenes. There is no singular answer to life, the universe, and everything. So be curious. Keep exploring and experimenting, especially with your mindset. Discover through direct testing which frames and mindsets work best for you. And please don’t get clingy with frames that aren’t filling your life with beauty and delight. If a frame isn’t working for you, look upon it with fresh doubt. Doubt is actually the key to reframing, such as when you say, Hmmm… I doubt this is the best way to define the problem. Could there be a better way of looking at this?

Ya think? Of course there’s a better way.

I originally shared this post on January 6 in Conscious Growth Club’s member forums, as a follow-up to our quarterly goal planning process. I thought it would be nice to share it here as well. Many CGCers found it helpful.

Let me share an unusual insight about why it’s often easier to achieve goals that seem bigger than anything you’ve done before.

This builds upon the Chapter 1 vs Chapter 2 idea shared on yesterday’s review call, but I don’t think you need to have heard that part to understand this.

[The idea I shared on the review call was based on a common piece of advice for new fiction writers – that you should delete whatever you wrote for Chapter 1 and begin your book with Chapter 2. This is because your original Chapter 1 will typically include too much backstory and exposition, and it’s frequently better to get into the juicy parts of your story sooner. I used this as an analogy for setting goals, suggesting that people ought to skip past the Chapter 1 version of their goals (which often involve overly mental or numbers-based framing – boring!) and get into the juicy parts of Chapter 2 and beyond by focusing on the meaning, ripples, and emotional journey.]

Acknowledging Your Old Story

When I was in my scarcity phase of life, I was very sensitive to prices. Since money was tight, I saw anything free as so much better than anything paid. If something cost $5, that would feel sooooo different than free. Even $1 vs free was a big deal. If I would buy a veggie sandwich at Subway, I would skip the avocado for $1 extra, even though I loved avocado. Would that $1 difference really matter? It felt like it mattered.

There’s still a part of my mind that thinks this way today because I conditioned it to think that way in the past. But it’s also linked up with relatively low-cost expenses because that was my training data set at the time.

As my income increased, I formed different associations to more expensive items. So part of my mind still wants to run extra assessment cycles over the difference between a $5 and $10 option, but when I think about a $500 vs $1000 expense, those land in my abundance training data set, so that seems easy because I don’t have major negative associations to those kinds of expenses. Consequently, it feels like $500 expenses are cheaper than $5 ones because I have less resistance to spending an extra $500 than I do to spending $5.

Same thing goes for taxes. Paying a $50K tax bill seems easy. Paying a $1K tax bill seems more painful. Those two tax bills are associated with different training sets and different chapters of my life.

Even today I will often think more about whether a $5 expense is worth it, but I can spend $500 like it’s just free money.

This also applies to the income side. It feels difficult to try to earn an extra $100. But earning an extra $20K or $50K is easy, and earning an extra $100K just seems fun and flowing. And I think that’s because with respect to those numbers, I’m not struggling with past associations getting in my way.

So that’s an interesting oddity about moving into a fresh Chapter 2 reality. It gives you a chance to break through your old associations and write a new story for your character.

Stretching Your Intentionality

Trying to fight or overcome my character’s pre-trained tendencies keeps me stuck in Chapter 1. But if I skip ahead to Chapter 2 in my imagination, there’s a blank page where I can write something new, if I’m willing to take the leap into unexplored territory.

This is one reason it’s so important and useful to stretch your intentionality further forward. Stretch beyond the story that’s already been written by your past, and extend your mind and goals into open spaces. You can often make much faster progress that way.

This requires the willingness to stretch your character and identity. Can you start seeing yourself as a different person? It helps if you’re able to stretch your character into some unexplored territory where you can begin writing some fresh story, so you can bypass some constraints of your past story.

It’s a bit like moving to a new city or going to a new school. If no one in the new territory knows you as your past self, you have more freedom to write a fresh story. I felt like I became a different person each time I had a significant move or school change. Same goes for getting into a new social circle.

It’s extra crucial to connect with a social group that gives you room to grow and that won’t keep associating you with your Chapter 1 self. It’s best to loosen up those connections that will resist your efforts to write some fresh story for your character. I think we do a good job of this in CGC by fostering a culture that encourages exploration and change, not tying anyone to stick with their past selves. You probably won’t find many members here who’d try to talk you out of writing a fresh chapter of your life story, but I know that some members struggle with other social connections that resist those kinds of changes.

Keep in mind (and in heart) that when you break free and begin writing your Chapter 2 story, you encourage others to do the same, even if they may initially resist what you’re doing. You’re not really serving anyone by clinging to Chapter 1.

The Power of Unwritten Story

One pattern I see frequently in people who have some great transformational breakthroughs is that they stop focusing their attention where the resistance is, and they head for fresh territory. They start writing their new story where the story hasn’t been written yet.

Chapter 1 is the story of the old reality. That’s where all the problems and difficulties are. It’s so tempting to focus your attention there by saying, “I need to clear all of this out, and then I can begin writing Chapter 2.” But that will almost always keep you stuck in Chapter 1, which will just keep generating more of the same kinds of problems to anchor you there. You’ll probably never make it to Chapter 2 with that approach. Usually life doesn’t reward this approach very well either. You probably won’t get much cooperation, so you’ll have to self-power your way through every little problem and project, which becomes exhausting after a while. I really don’t recommend this.

It seems like a cheat to start writing Chapter 2 before you’ve finished Chapter 1, but is it really? If you were writing a novel or a movie script, would your best inspiration and motivation come from writing about the old reality? Do you think George Lucas got inspired to write Star Wars by thinking about a farmer boy with some droids? Did he finish writing Chapter 1 before giving much thought to what would come next? Seriously… who finds the inspiration for great story from anything in Chapter 1? You may begin writing there, but the inspiration for the story comes from much further along.

When people focus on Chapter 1 goals – the telltale signs being that the goals are super objective (often numbers-based), lack motivational fire, and don’t involve any meaningful character or identity shifts – they usually don’t get very far with them. And they often wonder what’s the point. And they’re right. There’s little point in working on such goals. It’s like watching Luke Skywalker setting quarterly goals to optimize the farm.

You’re munching on your popcorn watching Luke on the screen, and your mind is wondering when the real story will begin because you know that you’re just seeing the pre-transformational backstory during the first several minutes.

And oddly it’s easier for Luke to become a Jedi than it would be for him to optimize the farm. When he leaves Tatooine, he’s free to write fresh story. While his new reality may seem more daunting, it’s also 100X more motivating, and that makes all the difference in the galaxy.

He still, however, takes his (newest) farm droids with him on his new journey, so he doesn’t entirely break free from his past. But that doesn’t matter because he’s writing such a completely different story that the droids can’t offer any meaningful resistance. They get swept up in his new story too and become helpful allies. C3PO’s whining serves as humor and to remind us how much Luke has grown, but C3PO is powerless to derail Luke’s new story.

I find that to be the case in real life as well. When writing fresh story, I still carry elements of the past with me, but they no longer serve as anchors to resistance. The new story gives those old story elements new meaning. For instance, fretting over a $5 expense serves as a reminder to appreciate abundance and not to take it for granted, and that actually sweetens the experience. It also makes it easy to relate to people who struggle with finances because that mode of thinking is still with me. I wrote some extra script after that part of my story, but scarcity thinking is still part of my story. The scarcity mindset plays a different role now, anchoring to gratitude and compassion instead of to resistance and frustration. Sometimes I think of it as cute, much as you could see R2D2 in that way.

Finding Your Best Motivational Fuel

Chapter 1 doesn’t provide the motivational fuel to get through Chapter 1. That fuel comes from hooking your body, mind, heart, and spirit into Chapter 2 and beyond. Once you anchor your intentions into your new reality and your new identity, your perspective on Chapter 1 will shift. How this plays out is different for everyone, but it generally involves finding shortcuts that speed you through Chapter 1 and/or realizing that some of the old problems don’t even need to be solved or dealt with anymore.

Did Luke ever go back to Tatooine and wrap up his affairs with the farm? Did he inherit the place from his uncle and aunt after they died? Did the Empire seize it for unpaid taxes? Did he turn it into a rebel burner commune? Does it matter?

It’s hard to find people who regret getting into their Chapter 2 story, even when the transition out of Chapter 1 is messy and inelegant (which it usually is). The #1 regret is that people wish they’d done it sooner, often many years sooner. People regret spending so much time figuring out, optimizing, and trying to advance their Chapter 1 story. In retrospect, they look back and wonder why it took them so long to progress to the juiciest and most engaging parts of their story arc. In many cases they waited until life kicked them out of Chapter 1, and they were forced by circumstances to finally get into Chapter 2, but then it wasn’t the Chapter 2 experience they’d have chosen if they’d done it more consciously and deliberately.

Look at your goals and ask yourself if you’re drawing motivation, inspiration, and story progression from Chapter 2 and beyond… or if you’re still trying to optimize the farm. You can tinker on the farm – that’s your choice – but life won’t likely open up the floodgates of support and synchronous aid till you make a more interesting story pitch.

Your own body is unlikely to cooperate much with a Chapter 1 story pitch either. It probably won’t fill your heart with the best motivation and your mind with the best idea flow until you give it a compelling reason to amp up the energy flow. That compelling reason won’t be found in Chapter 1.

On Monday’s live quarterly planning review call in Conscious Growth Club – which spanned more than 5 hours – I shared some tips about thinking in units of meaning rather than units of time.

Many years ago I tried a system of writing 4 hours per day. I did it for 30 days straight but really didn’t like it. It didn’t help me create the kind of relationship that I wanted to have with writing, and it took daily discipline to keep going with it. I felt relieved when I stopped. That might be a fine system for someone else, but it wasn’t a good fit for me.

Each day I filled the 4 hours with writing and editing, and I would stop shortly after I hit that time. The writing I produced during that time was stunted and uninspired.

A better system for me is that when I start writing a piece, I begin with an inspired idea and then do my best to finish, edit, and publish a meaningful piece the same day. It doesn’t matter whether it takes 45 minutes or 5 hours. I like to forget about the time, enter a timeless state, and enjoy the flow of ideas and energy and the feelings of connection and centeredness. Thinking about the passage of time or trying to hit a time quota or word count is entirely the wrong framing for me to do my best writing. It’s much better for me to focus on one article (or one course lesson) as a unit of meaning. It takes as long as it takes, and I prefer not to stop till it’s fully done and published.

Trying to write for 4 hours fatigues me. But writing and publishing an article energizes me, even if it takes 4+ hours. The framing I use has a huge impact on my motivation, energy flow, and enjoyment of the experience.

The Most Meaningful Step

The act of publishing is the most meaningful step in this process. When an article gets published, other people can read it, and I can also mentally let go of that piece of work. Then I can take a break and move on to something else.

Last year I published something new to my blog every single day, and it was relatively easy. If I had tried to write for an hour per day or to write 1000 words per day, I think it would have been a miserable year, but by focusing on units of meaning (i.e. daily published articles or videos), I actually enjoyed the experience.

This also aligns with what I shared in the previous post about finding your best motivational fuel. When you spend a day at Disneyland, are thinking about what you can accomplish within the span of an hour? Probably not. You’re probably just deciding what ride to go on next. Time isn’t a unit of meaning at Disneyland. Units of meaning include going on rides, seeing shows, watching parades, having a meal, taking a cool photo, and so on. A day at Disneyland is about racking up meaningful experiences. And the peak experiences will often matter more than the overall quantity of experiences.

Do you fill your days with blocks or time or with units of meaning? Which do you find more naturally motivating? Which do you find more satisfying afterwards?

If all I do in a day is publish a new article or do a CGC coaching call, that makes the day feel pretty satisfying. But if I put in 10 hours and don’t accomplish any real units of meaning because I just picked away at a bunch of minor items, the day doesn’t feel nearly as satisfying.

Having satisfying experiences is good for motivation and momentum. Putting in a lot of hours, by itself, is not. If there aren’t enough satisfying units of meaning in those hours, the hours can become draining.

Sustainable Motivational

October 1st was the 17-year anniversary of my blog, so I’m now gliding into my 18th year of continuous blogging. I still enjoy it and intend to continue.

How many other bloggers have lasted this long – especially without leaning on guest posting? I receive almost daily requests from would-be guest posters, which I just delete (sometimes in bulk). Some time ago I asked my readers if they wanted guest posts, and they were almost unanimously opposed to it. And working with guest posters feels less meaningful to me than simply writing.

I still don’t write on a set schedule. I have no weekly or monthly quota for new material. I just write and publish something new when an inspired idea strikes me, and I sense it would be worth sharing. This attitude has yielded a happy, healthy, and sustainable relationship with blogging.

One thing that keeps my motivation strong and sustainable is that I primarily work in units of meaning, not time.

When I complete a unit of work that feels meaningful to me, it means I’ve reached a good stopping point where I feel satisfied with what I’ve done. My brain is able to relax and let go of certain items because the thought energy of those items has run its course.

If I write part of an article and stop for the day, my mind is stuck with an open loop. This is neither satisfying nor restful. If I did this regularly, it would add stress and tension to my life. So almost every article, video, and audio that I’ve published was conceived, written, recorded (if necessary), edited, and published all in the same day, usually in one continuous flow of action. For longer pieces I may have taken some breaks along the way, but I generally prefer no breaks or only very short breaks. Once I start a piece, I like to stick with it till it’s 100% done and published.

Meaningful Units of Coaching

I realize that I prefer a similar frame for our group coaching calls.

It’s not a great unit of meaning to try to stop at a certain fixed time for each person or for the whole call, so we don’t really have a set time limit. I’ve tried to lean in that direction sometimes, and it never quite felt right.

It feels more natural when we reach what feels like a reasonable transition point. Maybe we didn’t get to address every possible angle, but at least we can discuss and process what feels like a healthy unit of meaning for each person. We don’t have to stop mid-thought just because we hit a certain time.

This approach is actually more energizing and less fatiguing for me than if we are leaving too many open thought loops unresolved.

Fairness is an important value, and I consider whether fairness ought to be based on time or on units of meaning. Is it fair if I talk to one person for 15 minutes and another for 30 minutes? From a time perspective, that may seem unfair. But it takes a variable amount of time to reach a good unit of meaning for each person. One person may have a straightforward challenge that takes less time to address, which another person may desire some help unraveling a more complex, multi-faceted issue.

I like to think of fairness as doing my best to offer everyone who does the live coaching a healthy unit of meaning. I like for each person to feel satisfied with what we’ve covered. I still pay attention to the time because while I’m coaching one person, other people are watching and waiting – and also sharing their own comments as we go. So I’m aware of the passage of time, but I try not to be too aware of it. I find it best to stay in tune with the meaning and purpose of what we’re doing.

If someone brings up a really thorny or emotional issue on a call, it wouldn’t feel good to stop prematurely. I want to help them take a step forward, and sometimes that takes extra time for certain kinds of problems. What happens if we’ve been talking for 20 minutes already, and now the tears start flowing? Am I really going to say, “Uh well, I feel for you, but your time is up, so let’s bring up the next person”? No, we’re not going to do that.

Even when I did one-on-one coaching, I would charge a certain amount per phone call, but there was no set time limit for the call. We only ended the call when the other person was satisfied. I was never the one to end it. We would usually talk continuously for a few hours. If we needed to, we would take a bathroom break and keep right on going. I think this was a much better way of aligning our units of meaning than if we only talked for a fixed length of time.

Ignoring the Clock

Being too mindful of the clock can ruin otherwise good experiences. Trying to hit a certain time target can you off before you cross the threshold into a great unit of meaning. I made some big mistakes there when I younger, especially when trying to wrangle my creative projects to hit arbitrary deadlines.

In Conscious Growth Club, some of our group coaching calls have been going really long lately, at least by the standards you might see in other groups. The durations of our last 4 calls were: 5:34, 4:08, 4:47, and 5:05. During each call I might coach about a dozen people.

This is a continuous flow of “work” for me, usually with zero breaks. I think maybe twice I’ve taken a quick bathroom break partway through, and then we kept right on going.

What seems to surprise some people is that my energy, focus, and enthusiasm stay high throughout these calls.

I’m sure it helps that I eat plants, exercise regularly, and sleep restfully. But I think it’s also important that I do this coaching in a way that feels motivating and not overly draining. Sometimes I do feel a bit tired after the calls, but normally that only hits me when I stop; then some parts of my brain feel like they’re going into rest mode. While I’m doing the coaching, however, I normally feel super engaged with it. Even after a 4-5 hour call, I sometimes don’t want to close Zoom and log off.

I think a key reason for this is that during the call, we rack up so many units of meaning that the experience feels very purposeful, intimate, and energizing. I also really love the mutually supportive vibe that we’ve created in the group as we help people solve problems, figure out tricky decisions, and take their desired next steps. I think I’m boosted by the positive, compassionate, and often playful energy that we create together on these calls.

We started doing these group coaching calls in 2017, and I enjoy them even more today than I did during the first year or two. Even though the calls have gotten considerably longer, the experience has somehow felt increasingly timeless, as if time matters a lot less than I originally thought it should. Meaning and purpose matter so much more than time.

On Monday we did a 5+ hour quarterly review call, which is a process we do once per quarter. This was our longest one ever. And oddly I found this call the least fatiguing one of all. In the past I would watch the clock more when preparing the reviews and also when sharing them, and this time I relaxed more regarding the time. This allowed me to share even more than usual.

I shared my commentary on the goals of 21 CGC members on the call, and my notes for the call (which took days to prepare) were more than 21,000 words. I used those notes to talk about members’ goals for 5 hours continuously with zero breaks. Even as we got to the end, my energy was still good, and I was still very much enjoying it. The main limitation was my voice’s ability to hold up for that long, and Rachelle graciously helped by bringing me some ginger tea with lemon to sip.

We have another regular coaching call this afternoon in CGC, and I’m looking forward to that as well. Interestingly it seems that the more I relax about the time and just go with the flow of the experience, transitioning based on units of meaning, that seems to yield the best motivation and enthusiasm and the least fatigue. So it’s really the same pattern I discovered with writing by applied to coaching. Ignore the clock as much as possible, and stay present to the flow of the moment.

It’s fascinating that by ignoring the clock, several hours of continuous work can feel motivating and energizing, but even one hour may feel draining if you’re stuck dwelling on the time too much.

When you’ve experienced some of the best flow of your life, feeling energized instead of drained, how much were you watching the clock?

As you flow through more activities and experiences, consider thinking in units of meaning instead of units of time. Instead of constraining your life based on days and times, allow yourself to flow through units of meaning, sticking with each one long enough until you reach a satisfying and natural transition point. Seek to discover the units of meaning that energize you instead of remaining loyal to units that deplete you.